Anyone who became a fan of EXO after 2014 or 2015 might have been confused when they watched older videos and counted more members. These fans would soon learn that EXO started with 12 members but over the years now has 9 members. But the real question is why and how did this happen?

On May 15, 2014, SM Entertainment confirmed that Chinese member Kris had filed a lawsuit against the company to terminate his contract, stating a violation of human rights as the main reason.

A few months later in October, Luhan would follow Kris and file his own lawsuit against the entertainment giant to nullify his contract. His decision was based on his own health issues and the feeling that the Korean members were treated differently. At this time, SM Entertainment was quick to announce that the group would continue with 10 members while the ongoing legal battles ensued.

Unfortunately for EXO-Ls that was not the end. On April 22, 2015, Tao‘s father posted a letter through Weibo expressing his concerns for his son and talked about Tao’s withdrawal from the group. The letter stated that Tao had previously injured himself but had allegedly never received proper treatment for his injuries.

On a popular online Korean community called Instiz, a post titled, “Rookie boy group currently under fire for their attitude” went viral with over 26,000 views in under 3 hours.During a recent episode of Inkigayo, EXO was nominated as a candidate for first place. Common etiquette dictates that other artists make room for those nominated to be at the center of the stage.

Mnet deleted the original “Love Me Right” performance video, which had well over 700,000 views from YouTube before re-uploading the video but effectively erasing all of the view counts from the video.

EXO-Ls had tirelessly worked to promote their group’s video, raising the view count to over 700,000 views in just two days in order to help EXO in their battle to win Mnet’sM!Countdown, which takes into account YouTube views in the scores to determine the winner. Unfortunately, the video now only has approximately 150,000 views, at the time of writing.

Many fans have started to point fingers at Mnet, claiming that the company deleted the video on purpose and that they have also blocked many fancams from the performance.

A 2nd year middle school girl, who is an avid fan of EXO, and her mother, who didn’t like the fact that she was an EXO-L, were featured on SBS’Same Bed, Different Dreams.

The young fan, Songji, confessed she spends 24 hours of her day thinking and watching EXO and her mother was unhappy and could not understand why she spent so much of her time and money on EXO and buying EXO related products.

At this point Songji confessed the true reason behind her love of EXO. She revealed that when she was in sixth grade, her parents did not have much time for her due to the fact that her older sister was very sick. She had to deal with the loneliness and the depression that came with it by herself. She confessed that she even attempted to hurt herself as the result of her depression.

That’s when she came across EXO and found security and a sense of community in their fandom. She stated that by becoming a fan she became more social with her friends talking to them about EXO.

Chanyeol even appeared as a surprise guest for Songji.

[+ 1467, – 106] Even besides her situation it’s natural for a girl her age to go crazy over celebrities. She does appear to be on the extreme side but it won’t last too long. The real problem are adults who do sasaeng activities.

[+ 1111, – 88] It’s natural for girls her age to like celebrities.

[+ 994, – 266] Their parents’ hard earned money all goes to a celebrity that you’ve never even ate together with. Do you guys really like celebrities that much..